1968 Mercedes-Benz 280SE: The Blau Coupe

[Music] [Applause] [Music] just sitting in the cars just such a luxurious environment and gliding along looking at that dashboard in front of you and beyond the dashboard looking through the windscreen with the Mercedes emblem right there and guiding you you know as you drive along it's just amazing it's it's almost ambassadorial it's just beautiful [Music] my name is Josh Patel and I Drive a Mercedes Benz 280 SE coupe a 3.5 v8 and it's a right-hand drive pre-production model [Music] so I was born in Nairobi Kenya and my family had businesses established in Kenya in the photo processing business you know growing up in Kenya is fantastic is very much an outdoor life we just played outdoors all the time cycling and things like that and one of the great thing in Kenya is rally driving so rallying is a major sport in Kenya and my uncle was a rally driver so you know we followed him all the time I remember my art picking me up from school when I was about seven in in his rally car and can you imagine that you know being picked up at school in an arena rally car so that influenced a lot of my love for cars [Music] so the Mercedes 280 that I have today it all started with a passion for this car from for my father actually you know he was a Mercedes man I've always wanted a 280 SE coupe a I just think they're just that the shape is so fantastic remember my father had a mercedes fin tail in the same color as as this car with a white steering wheel and I've got pictures of my sister and I in that car I remember we used to fight over who could be in the driving seat and play with that huge steering wheel a white beautiful white large oversized steering wheel and that's what I grew up with and when I was looking I ended up buying a 300 SE coupe a which I completely loved but it wasn't an original car and I always had it in the back of my mind that I liked that car so much I must have an original and so the search never stopped really and five years later I found this car on the internet and I had to buy it so this car was a an amazing find because searching one one night on the internet and I came across this to atsc 3.5 kook a pre-production model and initially you know I didn't think it could be true how can a pre-production model be available saying it should be in a museum so I inquired more made the phone calls to the dealer and went up there and had a look at the paperwork and I mean the paperwork is unbelievable you know it's it's probably the most detailed history file of a car I have ever seen and going through that it was still at the back of your mind you think now can it really be a pre-production model so my friends at the mercedes-benz club UK I asked them to check out the history of this car and they contacted their contacts in Stuttgart Germany the chap in the archives department found details of my car in their records and confirmed that yeah it's a pre-production model so this car was ordered by the experimental division of mercedes-benz Daimler Benz back then and it was specifically ordered for the facelift styling so the lower grille and the new style bonnet and of course the 3.5 v8 engine so this is the first car that had the m-16 3.5 v8 engine put into it which mercedes-benz then used for a couple of decades in all of their s-class models so a very historically significant car I think that the City of London is where this car should be it belongs there it's spent most of its life in SE one that the car was found by Chappell mr. Gore's and who ran a business in se1 where my family ran their businesses for 40 years we still operate a site there between developing and and he happened to be around the corner from where we've run our businesses for 40 years [Music] Wow so here we are the reason why we're in SC one is because that site there we've owned for about 40 years interestingly I found out that the gentleman who imported this car was based literally down the road and so for most of its life this car has spent driving up and down these roads I spoke to the gentleman and he he used to use our shop which was here for photo developing it's amazing that the car spent most of its life in this area and I now own it driving around London is is so cool in this car because you get the reflections of all those magnificent buildings I love London because of its architecture we've got the old with the new some truly amazing buildings when you're driving along the car and you catch a reflection of the car in some of those oversized windows it's amazing you know and it's where it belongs you know amongst the hustle-bustle of people people need to see this car and what I love about driving in London is that there are so many people there and they do appreciate the car you always get thumbs up you always put a smile on someone's face and that's part of the ownership of such a beautiful car you know it's so difficult to have a favorite thing about this car because it's frankly so beautiful from every angle but if I had to choose I mean I love the headlights the stacked headlights I love the rear windscreen the way it's shaped the the rear quarter actually I particularly like very much the way the light falls on the car and bounces off the car the way the buildings and the surrounding reflect from on the car it's just fantastic my wife is you know sees the car as a rival so you know there is a shared love for my wife and the car but but no in all seriousness I mean she absolutely loves finishing into design and she loves that the shape of the car she loves the feel and drive of the car and she drives it on a regular basis as well and now Haneke he leaves a favorite of both [Music] when you start the car you know you fire up that v8 engine there is a pearl that you can you can hear inside the car and it's quiet but it's there and that's when you know that you are in help you know in a powerful well-built German machine the the proper clunk of the door the the white oversized steering wheel the comfortable luxurious seats the simplistic dashboard but that's ever so luxurious what's not to love about this car it's just absolutely fantastic from every point [Music] you

Channel: Petrolicious

Views: 362,327

Rating: 4.9377294 out of 5

Keywords: classic cars, vintage cars, petrolicious, top gear, drive, mercedes, 280SE

Id: pJ9vOsyU4PU

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2019